


Receding Light

by DubyahDee



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Amnesia, Fantasy, Magic, Mystery, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4398272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DubyahDee/pseuds/DubyahDee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All was silent. Rapt in attention did they become, and made to follow stringently an era into the sea of time."</p><p>A young man missing parts of his memory awakens in a forest, confused and alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The winding passage ahead was the better of two paths. The other had more soldiers, questioning those in the palace for good or ill, and I had no time with which to tarry. This was arguably the worst in at least one respect, for the gorgeous view out past the marble column lined veranda was marred by a scene of alien wonder and destruction, of innumerable violences committed over a small period of hours. It opened out into one of the numerous terraces, an open-air garden or some such, a sitting area, or a place of recreation. There were many like it in the palace, but this one was between me and the next leg of my journey upward. Five, six hundred meters below, lies a sunken, crater-marked Lyria, large swathes depressed or baked into a field of glass. The rest was aflame, with wailing, keening noises piercing the air like a cold wind. Alarms.

I hurried from the eastern garden terraces, climbing the steep stone-carved steps toward the higher level, away from here, bypassing the administrative complex in between via secret passages hewn into the surface, hidden within alcoves between the two. Tunnels built during the reign of the first Emperors. The heavy barred door ahead blocked egress, forcing me to rap upon it three times, twice fast, a pause, then another knock. Someone scrabbles on the other side, startled or harried, but they pull it wide open in a moment. "Gods above, Marinus, you gave me a fright. You mustn't linger, the High Lord is looking for you."

Patchy bearded, I would call him scraggly, the man before me was somewhat portly, but his voice resonates kindly, with a poise that belays any harsher opinion of softness. His dark eyes keenly ascertain my well being, before ushering me the rest of the way into the chamber, locking the door behind the two of us. "Clovis, for what reason would he seek me out?" I asked. "Was he not evacuated?" My words were indistinct, like being heard across a room. He laughs, in that deep basso-rumble, before gesturing vaguely, sandals scuffling upon a tiled floor with each step. "Oh, he has been, but it is his men who come to retrieve you." We stopped, and he firmly clasped me on the shoulder, speaking with that same calm surety and focus. "You mustn't let them, Marinus."

"They have not found me yet," I reply, feeling a confidence that is not my own. I am further reassured at the construct hidden in the hangar ahead, lodged between two buildings, as this floor levels out into a gap between structures where the air whips the coiling serpent regardants to and fro, the red banners tearing themselves loose as another great, soundless explosion of light engulfs another part of the city. This one was much, much closer.

"I fear they have already," comes another voice ahead, startling me. It was filled with a sense of solemnity, a light, husky tone, kept from breeziness, left wanting for any vestige of hope. That's the kind of voice she had. She appeared to be very brave, or that was what I thought when I looked at her, but I could not meet her eye, I could not imprint her features into my mind. She was lost to me, in a way. Sadness briefly consumed me. "They are coming," she warns, stepping past me. I turn, and a flash of light leaves me blinded. A sinking warmth threads my consciousness through the void, past a veil of time from one point to yet another. I come to be aware of myself then, in a new light.

"Marinus." The words spring forth as bubbles, roaring waves or muddled whispers. "Marinus... must not... have the key to..." I struggle for breath, a pinprick needle sensation caressing my skin from every inch, from head to toe. "You must have retrieved the Icon, then. And Marinus? Bring Marinus." More voices, their tonal dissonance hammering into my skull each time they speak, as I burrow from one moment into the next. "Gods be good, we have him at last. The hour grows near." I lurch forward, as if thrown through the air, and land solidly, as if time and space has fallen through my fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass, launching me from one moment to the next, until the same light from before engulfs me once again.

I stand high up, or from an elevated position at the least, the city stretches out before me for miles in all directions, a brutalized husk. Great spheres of light burst forth intermittently, swallowing up more of it, condemning thousands to a mere mote, a single spark that vanishes all too soon. Situated on the open-air platform is a series of obelisks, their carved edifices a web-way of scars, symbols, threaded with a soft blue glow, men in robes surrounding it, chanting in any number of languages, none recognizable to my ear. The one speaking of promises now isn't a man with a kindly voice and a patchy beard, a rumbling reassurance from a familiar confidant is absent. What replaces it is indescribable. Here lies only the promise of death, of that I was certain.

"Promise me, Marinus." It wasn't a plea, it was an imperious command, made the stranger for their arrangement. They are chains, from which I was bound inexorably onward. There was no compromise, no in between, for there lies ahead no matter which one can simply choose to do, or don't. To abstain from what one could only assume was divine providence, now that was absurd. It was Her will. It.

The figure speaks, but their lips do not move. They make sound, or the sound carves itself into my skull, reverberating, but no vocalizations were made. It is carved from gold and ebony, gigantic, looming over me and everyone around me, while the sky tears itself apart, and the keening whine of sirens in the city below are carried forth on the wind, along with the scent of ashes. Their likeness is incomparable to the beauty of a thousand and one Glorias, I thought absently. You could hardly call that beauty at all. It felt more like horror.

An inhuman, unnatural beauty carved from another world, melded together into a facsimile of their true nature in this one. Slowly, their silken wings unfurled, and their sinewy appendages stretch out to pluck me up and away from where I stood rooted to the ground. Their wild mane flutters upon an invisible breeze. And now it had me in its grasp. "Promise me." If it would get me away from here, far away from here, from all that I loved being torn to shreds before my very eyes, then yes, I would have given up anything, Gods above, make it stop, I willed. End it, I pleaded. "Are you certain?" I screamed. "Have no regrets." And then, I was scarcely aware of anything at all.


	2. Marinus

Different people had different views on the matter of death and nonexistence. 

Ask the spiritual, or religious, and they would claim of afterlife, of paradise or torment, or perhaps true rest in the rams of ancestors. Perhaps no rest at all, but an eternal cycle of life, ebb and flow, in and out. Ask of the philosophical, and they might claim of immense nothingness, becoming one with the infinite, or combining essence with the world, forming a bond with nature as one had in life, so too would they in death.

Ask of me, and I would tell you neither is wholly true. 

What comes after is color, nebulous clouds of gaseous, phosphoric light, prismatic, a galaxy of shifting hues coalescing together into a more unified whole. Of "being", and simultaneously sharing that "being" with innumerable others. Being without, also, distinct and unique, keeping the aspects separate from that of the others. And of the shared, infinitesimal understanding of our place in relation to anything else. It was a nexus of multiple immense existences besides, each also distinct, further, clouds of organisms joined in perfect harmony with them, following them like remoras in a pseudo-primordial soup.

I wanted to gasp and stare, slack jawed, for I was now but a mote in the eyes of Gods.

And stirring, the tide of the infinite drew me forth, and it acted like a sieve, stripping me both of personality and memory, context, drive, then emotion, until I was but a fine point balanced upon a pillar of light, set adrift in an ocean of raw energy. It was but a simple fragment, but it was strong, unbreakable, microscopic... It was the soul.

 

Awakening to the sound of running water, and the soft noon-time din of a forest, yes, the chirping of birds, accompanied by a wafting breeze, drifting through the trees, an assortment of sounds and earthy scents, tactile sensations; it was then that I'd regained my sight. 

Spots played against the scenery, from the light hitting my eyes, disappearing with a pair of blinks. And there greeted me a rippling sea of red leaves, gently swaying with the wind, stretching out in all directions. I hadn't known how long I continued to lay there, on the forest floor, without any idea of who or where I was, but understanding these concepts of person and place before the circumstances behind them, piecing together what I was going to do next came first. I sat upright, lifting a hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun, and shying away from the rays of sunlight piercing the canopy above, it registered to me that I was not meant to be here. I was out of place, yet could not identify why. 

Where better for me to be than here, then?

Snippets started to come back to me as I took to my feet, half remembered, a veritable bounty of incomplete knowledge at my disposal. The only name I had at hand was one I could not comfortably call my own. Stranger still, I did not understand why I felt this strongly about it. I had been called by it in the past. By whom? And before that, what?

No matter. It was to be mine, then. For were I to encounter another person, it would be the only name I would have to offer them. It was suitable, just another tool at my disposal, having no benefits outside being serviceable while readily maintained. More pertinent information, of how to act and move, was regained in due course, my legs lurched forward, clumsily, one step at a time. Through the woods, toward the source of running water, a babbling brook lay a short distance from this copse. 

My throat was parched, so this became my immediate concern. In twenty paces I came from stumbling over branches and past wide, ruddy trunks, to easily navigate most of the detritus and undergrowth. It was as though I'd hiked through wilderness on the regular in a past life. Maybe I had. In my haste, however, I practically flung myself onto hands and knees, quavering on all fours, before dropping into the brook and drinking deeply. 

When the water settled, I breathed in sharply, examining myself in further detail. Hair, like beaten gold, perhaps a touch lighter. A somewhat squared jaw. High cheekbones, my face bordering on gaunt. I might have been malnourished. Light colored eyes, I couldn't say what shade. What I wore was simple, but what I knew of the matter told me it was all high quality construction, the stitching at the seams barely visible, made of durable and warm material.

A black jerkin, embroidered on the breast with golden wings and a post. Grey breeches, grey tunic. Dark leather riding boots. More protective than linens, but hardly armor, of which I had some. Two metal bracers, whorling designs running across warped smoke-steel. Gloves, carefully articulated, with plates sewn onto the back. A small protrusion at the shoulder, under an old cloak of sorts, gray, without a hood, layering at the neck like scarves do, and clasped with a silver pin. It had more in common with a cape, if anything.

I prodded beneath the cloak, and found the object on my shoulder to be a pauldron, the straps on the opposite shoulder torn and hanging loosely. I tore those off, and peered over my bare shoulder. 

On the ground some distance away was an assortment of crushed and crumpled metal, what might have once been a breastplate, greaves and rerebraces. Other chunks of metal resembled nothing in the way of their accompaniments, just scrap in a heap. It was as if someone had torn parts of it from my body and balled it up like paper. An inaccurate comparison, but the only that readily came to mind. I grimaced, thinking about what could have done that, and yet also have spared my body the same fate; the scene before me spoke of sudden violence, combat tearing apart the terrain, uprooting trees. Broken limbs hung askew on their trunks perpendicular to the ground.

That was when I noticed the scabbard. It dangled upon a strap, slung across a low-hanging, broken branch. It was empty. Thinking about the discarded equipment, I grabbed this, backtracking, seeking answers. Investigating the clearing where I'd awoken, I quickly identified another oddity. Someone had driven a broadsword of smoky steel into the largest trunk that they could find, spilling sap like it was a bleeding wound. I had sought answers, sure, but I knew I'd only be leaving here with more questions. Yet I'd already resolved myself. Deciding that it was some kind of message, and best thought upon at a later time, I reached for the hilt, expecting to withdraw half a broken blade. My breathing drew slower, the beating in my chest like drumming... it came as a shock to my system, a flood of memories.

 

"You will be the safe harbor in the storm," he murmured down at me, dark eyes lingering before walking with purpose, heavy footfalls punctuating his next words, "ensconcing the faithful." There were many serene faces surrounding me, back then a mere child, and a large man carried me in his arms mumbled at times, words that I barely heard, and what he was saying I recognized, knowing the individual words, yes, but ignorant as to what they meant when put together. They were adult matters, and I was a child. They did not make sense to me. 

Making his way through the brazier-lit halls, past worshiping, prostrate pilgrims, the two of us drew closer to a gathering of figures, who were all dressed quite richly, satin silks and cotton. At his side was the sword in question, which I gazed upon with the steady fascination of a toddler. "You shall be like a beacon in the night, driving all darkness before you," he continues, with a reverberating, smooth voice, muscular shoulders tensing, preparing to hand you off to the woman of dark complexion in ceremonial garb, at the very fore of the gathering. With her indication, very reluctantly, he steps back, her more slender arms girding about you, her touch softer.

"You... you will defend the weak," he said, deep voice hesitant, their comely gaze losing itself upon you. "And guard the light," the woman finishes for him, cupping your cheek. He looks up abruptly, aghast. "We have waited for quite some time, Senator. The Gods are good," she greeted him then, with an accented alto. "You will make a fine sponsor, that is for certain. What luck this blessed child possesses to have you, indeed!" She touches my nose, eliciting a giggle, having been quiet up until that point. While my legs did not work, my hands easily caught onto her sleeve, earning a smile in return. "A fine offering to the Temple. Your piety is noted," she said, a coy smile playing upon her lips. "Gods be good," the man replied with a frown, brusquely, storming off back the way he came. 

"Please, do return soon," she called after him, cradling your very slight frame, near emaciated frame. He disappeared around the corner, never once looking back.

 

Up until I adjusted my grip upon the hilt of the sword, I questioned the owner of this blade. It was mine, however. Then and now. My burden to bear. I slipped backwards, abruptly, and it slid true and fast, out of the tree, scraping against the bark which captured it. When it came free, I wiped it down, carefully, in obvious wonder of the unknown metal, tracing patterns with my fingertips, stretched out across the surface, like vines. It must have taken immense strength to skewer it through the trunk in the first place. How it hadn't dulled or been damaged after being stabbed into such an odd resting place escaped me, as had my unconscious actions after drawing it. 

I knelt, attended to the weapon like it was second nature, exhaling and inhaling as certain details continued to come back to me in fits and starts. I sheathed it in one motion. Immediately, I felt a sense of comfort from the protection it offered, and the sentimentality of it, though the latter I grew conflicted of. Thumbing at the silver inlay on the pommel, I let my mind wander once more. 

Whatever I had been before waking up here in this forest, wherever I had gone, it had most certainly been with blade in hand.


End file.
